THE MORSE. 431 
Generally, however, these poor animals suffer themselves to be 
killed without showing much skill or cunning in evading their 
.assailants. A fishing-boat takes usually from two to three hundred 
in one season. In 1608, the crew of the Welden killed more than a 
thousand on the coast of Cherry Island. According to Gmelin’s 
account, the English took in 1705 and 1706, seven or eight 
hundred in six hours; in 1708, nine hundred in seven hours, 
and in 1710, eight hundred in a week. It is asserted that in 
the northern seas three or four thousand of these animals are 
destroyed every year. When a morse is caught on the land and 
wounded, he becomes really dangerous, and often breaks the 
arms of the incautious hunter, or even tears them off. If he cannot 
reach his enemy, he will strike the sand from side to side with 
his tusks, and, at last, as if driven to desperation, he will put his 
head between his fins, and, taking advantage of the sloping ground, 
will roll into the sea. 
Like the seal the morse furnishes a quantity of oil. Part of 
the skin is peeled off, and used for traces for carriages. The skin 
was formerly much prized in navigation; it was cut into thongs 
and twisted, and thus a strong cable was obtained, capable of 
great resistance. The teeth of the morse are preferred to 
ivory because they are harder, and less likely to turn yellow. 
Unfortunately they have not the size or weight of elephants’ tusks, 
though some are found forty inches long, and nearly ten inches 
in circumference at the root. The ivory of the morse is compact, 
susceptible of a fine polish, but not striated. Most of it has the 
appearance of little round grains accumulated without regularity, 
like pebbles in the conglomerate known as pudding-stone. These 
tusks are useful in a variety of ways. Russian prisoners work them 
very skilfully, in the same way that the galley-slaves at Toulon 
chisel cocoa-nuts. They make little boxes, cases, chains, and 
other little elegant knick-knacks, which are really master-pieces of 
patient work. 
